Chapter 33: Vine Dragon Attack

After a short while, Minerva finished writing down the second article and uploaded it to the website. The next thing she did was check her email for the flyer that her boss sent her. She opened the new message and printed 15 copies of the flyer in color. With that done, the woman proceeded to start searching for how to run a business. She looked at the many links on the search engine to see which one would have the best knowledge for her. While busy, she heard sounds outside the window, almost like someone was climbing on her house. She looked at the open window and saw Ronan coming in through it. "Hey, I'm back again. Find anything useful for the business?" He inquired as he leaned down to look over her shoulder.

Minerva shook her head and answered, "Not yet; I'm just getting started."

The man commented, "This stuff is beyond me, I'm too used to wilderness to understand this technology."

The woman replied, "Yeah, technology can be kind of confusing. But it will be easy, once you know how to use them." She clicked on a link to a website page with 10 steps to starting a business. The topic of step 1 was to write a business plan. She clicked on that link it and took her to a page with several links to sub-articles like "Funding Request", "Company Description", "Market Analysis", and "How to Make Your Business Stand Out".

Ronan looked at the screen and was just puzzled. "I'm going outside to practice. Be ready to leave later for our date." He smiled at her as he went outside.

"Okay, I will," Minerva said without taking her eyes off the computer. She clicked on each sub-article and read through them to get details on what she needed to do.

After reaching her home, Kathia thanked the coachman for the ride and went to the mansion. She opened the door with the house key and went inside to see her maid vacuuming the floor. The woman saw the girl had came home and greeted, "Welcome home, Lady Kathia. Are you hungry? May I cook you something to eat?"

The girl declined the offer, "No thanks, Mrs. Merryweather. I have some urgent business I need to take care of. It'll be quick before I return to Sundown." She walked past the maid and went up to her father's room. She took the message book off the nightstand to get his list of phone numbers. She dialed the phone numbers of the first man on the list and waited for him to pick up. When he did, Kathia said to him, "Hello Mr. Edward D. Greene, I have some good news for you. Rittevon Construction Company, Inc. is going back in business!" She told him all the details about why she needs the company and told him to call all the employees, so that they can have their jobs back.

Once the group got to the cave, Aeolus saw the silver dragoness twisting a stone between her fingers and said to her, "Juna, I'm here and these are the dragons that I have chosen."

Then Baltia flew up a bit next to the leader and hovered. "I'm Baltia," she added. Aeolus looked at the dark myst; she appears to certainly love to hear herself talk. He also disapproved of her speaking out of turn. It was rather rude in his opinion.

Juna glared at the pygmy and snarled at the horde leader, "You're late, Aeolus. You also brought the energetic one as well."

Aeolus apologized, "I apologize; there was somebody I had someone to "tend to" for a bit." He was referring to Yopple, but the silver probably wouldn't get it.

The group followed her farther inside the cave where Juna yelled out towards them, "A lord from Shadow Wind does not train any; only those that past a test first. Your little test is to try and hit me. For each hit, I'll let a seventh of the horde train under mine and Mekarth's wing." Then she went a bit further ahead of them before she turned and yelled, "You only get one hour, so have fun." Then she ran at full speed down the cave before vanishing inside it dark depths.

Aeolus looked at his group and said, "Looks like she's using the darkness to her advantage. We'll have to think of some way to get us through."

Gneiss offered his suggestion, "We could always use a fire breath to light the way."

Bam added with an eager smile, "Yeah, like mine!"

But the horde leader shook his head and declined, "No, she will find us this way and move away from us. We need a more creative plan than that." Then he looked at the group and asked, "Can anyone see in the dark?"

"I can't," said the navy blue dragon.

"Me neither," said the green dragon with a slight head shake. His geode mate shook her head, too.

Baltia rolled her eyes. "What do you want to see?" she asked, her white eyes still visible despite the blackness, reflecting the tiniest amount of light to visible levels. She looked around and asked sarcastically, "Rocks in the corner? I can't see in complete darkness, but any amount of light and it's fine. So, anyone got a match?"

Aeolus frowned slightly annoyed as to why Baltia asked such useless questions. Did she not pay attention to anything that was said or was she just simply trying to get under his scales on purpose? Either way, the horde leader didn't bother to answer. He looked at Yopple next and then asked, "Yopple, can you see in the dark?"

Yopple nodded and answered, "Yes sir, I can see in the dark. You need light?" He shot a bit of fire ahead of himself.

The leader answered, "No, just lead us through the cave and tell us if you see Juna or any obstacles."

"Yessir," the cassare said quietly, before he trudged on.

The group followed Yopple through the darkness. Their tails held on to each other so that they don't lose one another along the way. Walking through a place where you can't see anything was a bit unnerving, but Aeolus trusted the cassare to lead them safely. The horde leader used his nose to smell for Juna's scent in case she was nearby for them to attack. Thinking that Yopple might unwittingly announce the silver's location to the group aloud for her to hear and move away, the horde leader told him telepathically, 'Yopple, if you see or smell Juna, then tell it to us telepathically.' The cassare said nothing in response and continued to lead the way.

Atlas heard something snap from below; a tree might have gotten broken just now. She turned around and looked down at the forest to see if Spinx was there. She watched the forest intently, waiting to show that it was who she was thinking of. Within a minute later, a pained roar was heard from below the trees. The magi sensed a problem arising and murmured to herself, "Sounds like trouble." She took off and flew down to the woods. On the way, she heard the roar again for a split second. When she reached the scene, the magi found Axle in dragon form, a vine dragon, a woman who was lying dead on the ground.

Axle's fangs have been sunk into the vine dragon's neck. Blood dripped form the white dragon's mouth as the vine tried to pull out of Axle's bite. The white dragon was also one that was injured as well. Vines were ran though his body as well, blood dripping from the tips. However, Axle seemed to not notice at all. His eyes had a murderous look in them, almost like he was going to kill the vine dragon. The vine's eyes however looked like he was in fear. Atlas was surprised to see Axle looking like a savage beast; somehow it was strange to see him like that. She wondered what the vine dragon did to piss him off like that. It was probably related to the dead woman here. The magi descended to the ground and asked, "Axle's what's going on here?"

The vine dragon's eyes grew even larger, when he found out the dragon lord's name. "Axle Incarus," was all he could get out. Axle let go of his bite and replaced it with a claw to the chest. The vine dragon fell to the ground with a thud. The vines in the white dragon's body got pulled back out as Axle soon staggered a bit before he fell himself.

Atlas went over to his side and asked, "Axle, what the hell just happened just now? Are you okay?"

Axle's breathing have become more rapid and more shallow now. Blood flowed from the wounds he have sustained from his fight and they did not seem to be healing, but getting worse. His talons gripped at the ground in pain as his claws gashed the ground. Tears drip off his snout as he changed to his human form and was curled in a ball. "It... burns," Axle said through his sobs as he started cringing. Even in human form he was still bleeding as his white shirt now started to turn red from the blood.

"AXLE!" the magi shouted in intense worry for the man. She ran over to his side and transformed into her woman form. She carefully knelt down and touched his arm. Not only was he shaky, but he also felt cold as well. "Damn it," she whispered. The poor guy was hurt badly and Atlas felt sorry for him. She thought about cauterize his wounds, but she didn't want to hurt him anymore than he was now. She needed to get him some help quickly, but first she wanted to make sure that his magic was still functional. "Axle, calm down. Can you heal yourself?" she asked.

The man's blood started to pool around him. His skin tone started to change from it tan to a lighter pale color. "I... can't... stain..." Axle sound weaker than a few seconds ago. He cringed in pain even more.

The woman knew the man was dying and that he needed help now. "Hang on, Axle! I'm going to take you back to the horde!" she cried frantically. She remembered them having a healer dragon who helped Axle last night. If anyone can save the dragon lord, it would be him. Grabbing a hold of the man's arm, Atlas cast a tracking spell to Hewey and warped over to Solomos.

After Kathia called the other executives about her plans, the girl hang up the phone and made a plan to buy more spell books so that she and the people of Sundown would have more magic spells to learn. The girl went downstairs and said to her maid, "Goodbye again, Mrs. Merryweather. I'm going over to the bookstore, and then the sports store, and then I'm going to go back to the camp."

"Alright, take care, Kathia," the maid said to her. Kathia left the mansion and walked down the street to the bookstore. Hopefully on the way, she would find some people who were interested in being away from dragons.

Atlas and Axle appeared in a desert next to Hewey and a crimson flare he was sparring against. The Vulture Horde dragons around them looked to Atlas and Axle as one of them said, "Humans!"

A wasp pygmy looked at his leaf pygmy partner and asked, "What do we do?"

Tavurth growled and telepathically said to the nearby horde members, 'I say we kill them while the humans lovers aren't looking.'

The canopy dragon turned his attention and told him, 'Tavurth, they'll smell human blood on us if we kill them.'

The flower pygmy beside him reasoned, 'We can't! There's a dragon scent coming from that female. Not only that, but look closely at the male. He looks just like Axle when he turned human. It must be him and Atlas.'

The brute dragon looked at the man past his blood and immediately recognized him. 'Oh these guys! Well I guess we better sit here then.'

Atlas looked at Hewey, who was surprised and unsure of what to do. The woman cried, "You're that healer dragon from last night, aren't you? You gotta save Axle now! He got into a pretty bad fight with a vine dragon and now he's dying." With a desperate plea, she cried, "Please, save him!"

"Axle?" asked Hewey. After he recognized the scent, he became relieved to know that they were dragons. "Okay, I'll help. Stand aside and let me do my thing." The woman got out of the way to let the healer dragon use his magic to heal all the wounds.

After Hewey healed Axle, Atlas waited for him to wake up. But then she quickly realized that something was wrong. The man wasn't breathing at all. "Axle?" she asked, sounding worried.

The healer dragon knew what was going on and with a heavy heart, he told her, "I'm sorry Atlas, but Axle is dead."

The woman threw her head up and asked in shock and disbelief, "What?!"

"It's too late for him..." he said. Shaking his head, Hewey continued, "And there's nothing I can do to bring him back."

"Damn it!" Atlas cursed in frustration. "Just when we got back to Rudvich..." She looked to the ground and murmured, "Stupid vine dragon!" Then out of her guilt and frustration, a fire aura suddenly appeared around her and the woman became to let out an angry scream. She threw fireballs at the ground around her, not hitting any dragon around her. "I should have gone there faster!" she yelled. If she had flown to the woods the moment she heard the first roar, then Axle wouldn't have died. She failed herself, she failed his family, she failed Strider, she failed Shadow Wind, and most of all, she failed the dragon she sworn to protect. "Gah! Can't I do anything right?!" she yelled.

Suddenly, she heard a telepathic voice in her mind saying, 'Calm down, there's a chance that you may still save him.'

Atlas stopped throwing fireballs and asked, "Huh? Who said that?"

"Me," said a magi dragon, who was part-magma, approaching her from behind. The woman turned to him and he continued, "When the clan leader fell dead and breathless, Aeolus brought him back to life with just the simple trick of pushing down on his chest."

"Really?" asked Atlas. "That's how his life got saved?"

"Yes, I was there to witness it," the magma magi said. "And it was pretty unbelievable to me and my friend, Cirrus. You should give it a try, miss. It may save his life."

At this point, Atlas was ready to try anything to save Axle's life, even if it was crazy. "Okay, I'll do it," she said. After her fire aura disappeared, the woman awkwardly tried to get down, but ended up falling over. 'Damn, I need to learn to work on how to sit in human form,' she thought. She pushed herself up into a squatting position and placed her hand on the man's chest. She started pushing down on him repeatedly.

"No, not like that!" the magma magi told her. "I think you needed to push down on him one per second. That's how Aeolus did it."

Then a spring dragoness nearby said, "And try breathing into his mouth in between pushes, too. I saw a human do that to another before when she was unconscious."

This advice sounded more awkward to Atlas, but she's willing to try it. So as she pushed on his chest once per second, she put her mouth on Axle's and breathed down into it. She repeated this procedure until he would wake up. It was several attempts at CPR before a pulse was felt in the man's chest. The woman stopped and brought her head away from him. This was soon followed by a slow rise in his chest as natural breathing, but he still remained pale a bit. His breath was shallow and seemed short. There was a flick of bronze strips going across his left side of his face from his eye heading towards his neck, almost like a claw marks. This seemed to restore his skin tone back to a tan skin tone and his breathing return to normal as well.

Atlas became happy and thought, 'It worked; he's alive!' For a few minutes, she watched him breathing slowly and thought, 'Come on, Axle. Wake up! We got a mountain to go to.' Then his eyes opened slowly and revealed their royal blue treasures. He looked at the woman for a second and sat up a bit. His eyes look like they were puzzled by some sort of events that have just happened. Atlas smiled joyfully and cried, "Axle, you're back!"

The magma magi smiled as well and commented, "Looks like the trick saved the day again."

Axle looked a bit confused and asked, "Um, did I miss something?"

Atlas decided to fill him in on it, "You were half-dead, Axle. So I had to get you healed by the Vulture Horde's healer dragon and then bring you back to life."

A honeycomb pygmy telepathically said to Axle, 'She had to do mouth to mouth.' The man looked surprised and smiled at the woman.

Then he looked around for a second before asking, "Where are we at?"

Atlas answered, "I don't know, but all I can say is that we're in a desert."

A grumpy black dragon stepped forward with a harrumph and said, "Alright, are you two done with this dramatic reunion?" Atlas and the other dragons turned their heads to him. "I understand that one of you just woke up from clinical death and the other was near mental breakdown, so I'll cut you some slack. Now, I would like to know some things here. One, and that's addressed to all of you..." He looked around at everyone in his sight. "Who are you guys exactly? Two, I would like to know why are you here. Yes, I know that you were training, but I would like to hear a reason for that, thank you very much."

An albino dragoness looked to the 'humans' and told them through telepathy, 'I'll talk to him.' Then she turned to the black dragon and said to him, "We're the Vulture Horde. We're all training to learn how to fight an evil dictator's army."

Her sister, another albino dragoness, held her wing out toward the 'humans' and said, "These two over there are Axle and Atlas. Axle's the lord of a city called Shadow Wind and Atlas is his companion. Axle and his family got usurped by a wicked dragon named Dracul. So we're going to help him reclaim his homeland."

The man looked to his companion and said, "We can go back now Atlas, whenever you want."

"I say we do it now," said the woman. "It's been what? Nearly an hour and we still haven't taken any steps towards Trident Mountain. We need to go now." Turning to the healer dragon, she said, "Thanks again for the help! You guys do your best on getting stronger, you hear?"

Hewey smiled and replied, "I got you; and good luck on your journey, you two." Then Atlas teleported herself and Axle back over to Northeast Rudvich at the woods where the vine dragon laid dead.

Atlas looked at the vine dragon for a bit. She brought up a question concerning it, "So Axle, about that fight with weed-bum here. What the hell happened to make you two want to scuffle?"

Axle look at her for a brief second before he turned his eyes back to the dead woman. He grabbed his dagger from the ground, which was cover in the vine's blood. He came up to the dead woman and kneed down. He placed the dagger back where he kept it, and then scooped up the woman's head and placed his against hers. His forehead was placed against hers as the sound of his natural tongue sounding more like it had sorrow in his voice. This took about two minutes before tears could be seen falling on the girl's cold face. After Axle was done, he pulled out a pale white scale, a golden coin and a small knife which was tucked in his right boot.

He clapped his hands around the woman and folded her hands around the white scale, leaving the middle open. He placed the gold coin in the small opening, then took the knife to his palm that have placed the golden coin and sliced it open, letting the blood drip on the coin and fill the small dip in the scale. He wiped his hand on his pants and slowly let the woman's head down.

Axle turn his attention back to Atlas's question. "She was a dear friend of mine and I raised her from the age of three. She was family to me and now she gone." He sound depressed at the fact the woman was dead. "He chosen his action and I chosen mine. I will hold the regret of taking a life." Tears ran down his face. He turned back around and kneed to the body of the woman. His head hung down as tears kept on falling.

Atlas felt sorry for his terrible loss and thought, 'Poor guy, he's just like me. We both lost someone we care about and avenged them. But he really does value life. If I had been in his place, I wouldn't have felt bad about taking that vine dragon's life. Such a kind soul; perhaps this is the kind of lord Shadow Wind needs.' Then suddenly, she heard a distress call in her mind. The woman tensed with alert and thought, 'Trouble again so soon? Now what?' Then she asked the man, "Axle? Did you sense that?" There was something peculiar about the distress call. It felt like it came from a relative of hers, but who? Can't be Flarina as she died a few days ago. And her nieces were impossible as they were in Solomos right now. It probably must be an ancestor, cousin, or descendant of some sort; most likely the latter.

Her question got ignored as the man's hand clinched to the ground as if something just hit him. He got up off his knees. "Dracul, I will never forgive you. Your responsible for Valinora's death and now you have hurt my family. I will kill you," he said out loud and his voice was filled with both anger and sorrow, pain and savagery. He sounded as if he was almost promised he would. Atlas was surprised by this sudden outburst. "Atlas let's go, I have wasted enough time away from home," Axle said and the corner of his eyes meant something else, almost like he was in that state he was in when he fought the vine dragon. He turn and walked towards the mountain in a fast pace.

A little bit disturbed, the woman replied, "Uh... Okay?" She followed him through the woods as they went on their way to Trident Mountain. While walking, her thoughts went on about the distressed dragoness. 'I feel bad right now. I don't like leaving others in danger, especially my family, but I just don't know who called me and what they look like,' she thought. If she's never seen that dragoness before, then using the tracking spell and teleporting to her was pretty much impossible. 'Damn it!' she thought, ridden with guilt. She hoped the dragoness would forgive her for abandoning her. The only thing she could do right now was save Shadow Wind and hope that she'll be able to rescue her afterwards.

Pretty soon in the group's search, Yopple announced, "Juna up ahead."

Aeolus frowned in dismay; he had told Yopple not to say things out loud. He was about to call him out through telepathy on it when he smelled Juna's scent. A quick realization told him that the dragoness would have found them out through scent alone. So perhaps it was unless to blame the cassare for blurting. The horde leader decided to forgive him and said telepathically, 'Yes, I can smell her.' With Juna nearby, he told the group, 'Everyone, be ready to attack.'

Bam replied to him, 'Got it, cous!' Aeolus tensed his breath pipe to prepare himself to breath out lightning.

The group heard the soft drop of Juna landing and then her laughter. Aeolus commented, 'She's here. Attack her in the direction you heard her.'

Yopple responded, 'Yes, sir.'

The horde leader blew out lightning at where Juna was standing and the other horde member did the same with their breaths; and in the cassare's case, a spell consisting of scalding water torrents. Aeolus held back most of his voltage, so that he doesn't electrocute her. Then by accident, the disaster dragon got burned by Bam's fire breath. Aeolus roared in response to the pain before the navy blue apologized, "Oops, sorry cous!"

The light of Concetto's flames revealed Juna in halfling form for a second before the cluster of attacks hit, causing an explosion happen which then gave rise to smoke. The singeing smell stung Aeolus's nose a bit, but he didn't care about that now. After the smoke quickly cleared away, the woman told them, "If that was all, you are all in some deep trouble." Then they smelled and heard her moving before, her voice echoed through the cave, "Do you really think small little things like that will work? Because you are highly mistaken."

Yopple cursed under his breath; even the horde leader was a bit disappointed as he thought, 'We missed.' Then he got clawed on his snout and chest by her. He gritted his teeth in pain before he tried to smell her out for where she's at. Upon finding the direction of the scent, Aeolus decided to go with a different tactic this time. He telepathically told the group, 'Bam, Baltia, Concetto, hold your fire breaths. That light will just give her an opportunity to dodge. Yopple, Gneiss, Selenite, you three attack at where you smell her out.'

Yopple replied calmly, 'Yes sir.'

Everyone else said, 'Got it!' Then the green and geode couple blew out their rock breaths at where the Juna's scent came from. The cassare shot scalding water jets in there as well. He shot them like machine gun bullets, not ceasing fire. As they heard the sounds of rocks hitting the ground and water splashing, Juna yelled, "You're not learning, are you? Breath weapons and magic is not really that useful here in the dark. It makes it ten times harder to hit your target than it would be in daylight." Then to Yopple, she continued, "What was you even trying to do, cook crabs? Well let me tell you something; I'm not a crab or anything you can eat and I will bite back."

After learning that the attacks didn't hit the halfling, Aeolus quickly found out why. 'Of course, she's related to a black dragon. How else could she see in the dark?' he thought, knowing she must have inherit the nocturnal vision of a parent of that breed.

Gneiss frowned and said, "Oh great, she can see us."

"Apparently," the horde leader commented. Then he told the group, "Everyone, we can't remain blinded in the dark like this. We need to be able to see as well, so that we're on even grounds with Juna. So by all means, give us your light." So the fire-breathing dragons blew and held fires in their mouths to use as torches in the dark.

Looking around for Juna, Bam telepathically said to the group, 'So where is she?'

Aeolus looked at the spot where the rocks and water hit that was shown by Concetto's light. Knowing that the halfling was nearby in that area, he telepathically the soldier dragon, 'Concetto, keep your light in that direction. I know Juna's around here.'

'Yes sir,' the soldier dragon replied.

The horde leader looked at the cassare next and said, 'Yopple, you're with me. We're going to get Juna.'

The cassare replied with an almost evil grin, 'You need light, sir? Got it.'

Aeolus said, 'Yes Yopple, that'll be helpful.' So after the cassare cast his fire aura to provide a great amount of light, the horde leader walked over to the lighted area as he telepathically told Bam and Baltia to put light in that direction as well. 'And make it adjacent so that we can have a wider area to see,' he told them.

'Got it, cous!' the navy blue replied, putting his light area next to Concetto's.

Baltia, however, had her light wandering around everywhere, not caring to stop in its place. 'Ooh, do you want it here, here, or there?' she asked while flying around. She accidentally got too close to her leader's head and had the bright light of her flame nearly blind him in the eye.

The disaster dragon turned his head away and winced as he closed his eyes shut. He was getting annoyed with the dark myst's high jink. Biting down to avoid yelling too harshly at her, he growled, "Just look at the rock in the light."

"Okay," said Baltia. This she did as she was told. So Aeolus and Yopple went back to approaching the rock. As they got closer, the scent grew stronger. The horde leader suspected that Juna was hiding behind the rock. Getting prepared for whatever ambush there was, he carefully went around the rock. He had his claws tensed to slash and his tail ready to hit in case she came at him. The light from the cassare's fire aura revealed the halfling. But before Aeolus could even react quickly, the halfling had chucked a small rock into his eye. The horde leader threw his head back and shut his pained eye as he roared from the stinging hurt.

The group saw the woman running past then. Concetto tried to swipe at her with his claw, but he missed as she made a mad dash deeper in the cave. Aeolus turned his head to see her go and yelled, "After her!" So the dragons chased after Juna with the light from all the fire users helping them to keep sight of her. Gneiss and Selenite blew out rocks at her as they ran. But as the horde got closer to her, the halfling decided to turn around and run right towards the group. Some of the dragons got confident smirks thinking that she was stupid for going the other way and believed that this time they were going to get her. But Aeolus suspected something else at hand. 'What is she doing?' he wondered about her tactic. Gneiss tried to slam his paw down on the halfling, but missed as she slide right underneath Yopple.

After Juna was behind the cassare, Bam saw her and thought, 'Now I got you!' He blew down a fireball at her, but she jumped to her feet and leapt over it. Then she landed on the navy blue's head. "Yowch!" he cried before he felt her get off. With there no longer having fire in Bam's mouth, the visibility in the darkness got narrower.

But thankfully, Concetto was able to keep his attention on the halfling and let his light show her being on the ceiling. Juna taunted the group, "Come on. If you had the brains of a real dragon, you would have came up with a better plan than chasing me deeper in the cave."

Without turning his eyes off her, Gneiss said telepathically to Aeolus, 'You know, I'm tempted to use my earthquake, but that would just bring the whole cave down on us.'

The horde leader agreed and replied, 'Which is why we need to come up with a better plan.'

'Got anything in mind?' asked the green dragon.

Aeolus began to think about what he could do to get to Juna. Running after her didn't seem to work at all; it would be easier if they could somehow get to her in an instant. That's when he thought about Yopple's teleporting ability. The cassare dragon had a fire aura on himself; if he could warp himself over to the halfling and catch her in his flames, then this would count as a hit. The horde leader said to his cousin, 'We use Yopple.' Then he formed a telepathic connection with the magi casssare and said, 'Yopple, I need you to warp yourself up there to Juna. And I don't mean on spaces around her. You must be touching her after teleportation. That's the only way we can hit her for good.'

The cassare nodded and replied, 'Yes sir. In fact...' The way he said it sounded like he had an idea. He dimmed his fire for a few seconds, so there was a bit of flame on his scales. Then he teleported up there to the halfling.

"Shit!" Juna shouted as the flames scorched her. She bounced quickly from where she was at before Yopple blasted his fire aura to full force. Afterwards, she landed on her back.

Seeing the scorch mark on her, Gneiss smiled triumphantly and exclaimed, "It worked!" The cassare wore a devilish grin on his face. Aeolus and the rest of the horde were glad they managed to successfully land a hit on the halfling. But they knew it wasn't over yet; they still needed to hit her six more times before the whole horde could be trained. For good measure, Yopple reached fast to grab her and shot more flames out of his mouth. But Juna managed to get out of the way and ran past the attacking dragons who tried to get at her with claws, teeth, and tails. She vanished untouched into the shadows. The group chased after her deeper into the cave, quite far down.

After reading all of step 1, Minerva wrote down on a notepad paper the supplies she would need for Ronan's business such as chairs, a table, dummies, wooden swords. She even thought of hiring a web designer to make his website and a graphic designer to make the banner and ads on paper. She clicked the back button and went to step 2, which was how to get business assistance and training. Thankfully, they were free and they were on web videos. But there were many of them and each of them probably took like several minutes to watch. Minerva let out a sigh and thought, 'Oh boy, this is going to take a while.' She clicked on the first video link and listened to the explanation about the types of local assistances like regional offices, district offices, and disaster field offices. Thankfully, it only took 2 minutes to watch. Then she went to another video, which also took a very short time.

Author's Note: I was originally going to make this chapter mostly about the horde's task to land many hits on Juna (it's still not over yet). But since it went about an hour long in RP time, I decided to add in parts of Atlas's story in there, so that it doesn't get confusing when Raven goes to speak with Aeolus after the test.

Edward D. Greene (c) me
Valinora (c) LordDraco8967
Raven (c) TheTron852 (a.k.a. UberCatsr on Deviantart)